Symposium on Wellness

Posted: October 7, 2012 - 12:11am

NAMI-Juneau is sponsoring the Symposium on Wellness tomorrow at Centennial Hall from 5-8:30 p.m.

The night starts with local businesses and providers sharing information with the public about resources and opportunities for wellness in the community. Then three presenters will discuss mental illness and food allergies and recovery and peer support in Alaska.

5 – 6:30 p.m.: Wellness Fair

Local businesses and providers will have information booths for the public to learn about resources and opportunities for wellness in Juneau.

Participants will understand the impact that food allergies can have on mental and emotional well-being. Participants will be able to identify at least five of the most common food allergies and will understand the minimum time required to ascertain whether food allergies are playing a part in their own mental and emotional well-being.

Did you know that 25% of Americans have at least one episode of mental illness in their lifetime? Did you know that research shows that nearly 70% of people who experience serious mental illness make full recoveries? There are many reasons behind this and this session will explore some of these. A great support for this process is peer support. Peer support is people who have lived experience of mental illness and/or drug and alcohol issues supporting each other; or families of people with these experiences supporting other families of people with these experiences. This is common throughout life (e.g. mothers and babies groups, men’s groups, cancer support groups, etc). This session will explore peer support, how it supports people’s recovery and why it is essential to any treatment and support for people with mental illness and/or drug and alcohol issues. It will also provide information on the Alaska Peer Support Consortium, the statewide group working on this issue to see it accessible throughout the state.